“What you notice about people,” Diane Arbus said, “is the flaw.” Arbus turned flaws into great photographs. During the 1950s and ’60s, she pointed her camera straight across polite social boundaries ...

Siri Hustvedt’s The Blazing World puts a clever twist on an old plot. In most versions of this plot, a woman is born with creative genius. She has a moment of hubris, achieves sexual fulfillment, and ...